Page 67 - World Airnews Magazine May Edition 2021

NEWS DIGITAL

governments and have been directed to national companies,” says until now without any redundancies or salary cuts,” he says.
Berthé, who explains that he has accompanied Asky in its dealings The company was created in 2010 and recorded its first profit
with the AfDB. in 2015. This was “a year behind our initial projections because
“We have also organised a webinar with Afreximbank and are of the Ebola crisis,” says Asky’s commercial director. Then, after
proposing another with Africa Finance Corporation to put our a difficult year in 2016 “due to a shortage of pilots worldwide,
members in touch with these institutions so that they can study which made it impossible for us to operate all the flights we had
possible solutions together,” adds Berthé, who hopes to hear scheduled,” the company became profitable once more from 2017
concrete announcements from the financial institutions soon. to 2019, growing each year by 3% to 5% until it reached a turnover
of 95bn CFA francs.
OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE The company, which has 475 employees of 32 different
However, even though he does not hide his concern about the nationalities and already operates a route to New York thanks
crisis, Ngala is optimistic about the company’s future. At 10 years to its partnership with Ethiopian Airlines, had also planned to
old, Asky is already one of the oldest players in the West African connect to Europe and the Middle East in 2019. “The project itself
landscape. is not in doubt, but this period is not conducive to conquering new
“I am confident about Asky’s future because we were on the right markets. We will first consolidate our current routes,” concludes
track. 2019 was the most profitable year in our company’s history, Ngala. Q
and we started 2020 with two equally promising months. This is
what has enabled us – alongside the UN contract – to have made it Article courtesy: https://www.theafricareport.com/

NEWS DIGITAL

KENYA AIRWAYS, CONGO

AIRWAYS SIGN PARTNERSHIP

AGREEMENT

By David Ochieng Mbewa

by Kenya Airways Group CEO airlines co-operate in areas of statement said.
Allan Kilavuka and Congo mutual interest, among them The deal comes as airlines
The national carriers of Airways’ Desire Balazire Bantu aircraft maintenance, training across the continent attempt
Kenya and the Democratic on what was the final day of a and sharing of excess capacity. to shore up resources as
Republic of Congo – Kenya three-day state visit by Kenyan “Also included in the the COVID-19 pandemic
President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Airways and Congo Airways – two-year agreement, whose continues to cause massive
Kenyatta and his Congolese
signed a two-year partnership counterpart Felix Tshisekedi overarching objective is disruptions to the resumption
of international air travel.
agreement recently with the witnessed the signing of the viability and sustainability Last month, Kenya Airways
of the airlines, is a route
overall objectives of viability partnership. and code sharing provision reported its worst ever loss
and sustainability of the two A statement from the aimed at expanding the of about $330 million (Sh36.2
airlines. Kenyan presidency said the carriers domestic, African and billion) dealing a major blow to
The agreement was signed agreement will see both international networks,” the its recovery efforts. Q
World Airnews | May Extra 2021
— 20 —